"You Know What You Have To Do" 02.

[ZƎRO]

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“There you are!” Lauren’s voice was heard. It was a week after the heinous assault on Miles Larsen not only by Shawn DeLise but Bryce Albright as well, and here we find ZERO in the parking lot of The Arena. This was the scene of the crime, if you will. Where Bryce Albright came out of nowhere and chop blocked Miles’ knee right from under him. The same knee that Shawn DeLise smashed in with a lead pipe not an hour earlier. ZERO gave chase as Bryce jumped into the car his father drove but he wasn’t able to catch him, and now here ZERO sits stooped on a set of concrete stairs that lead into the receiving door of the Arena.

“ZERO, I’ve been looking all over for you for days now. I’ve tried hotels, I’ve tried gyms, I’ve even phoned ahead to Pasadena and spoke to Miles..” she noticed his head pick up. “..to see if you had made it to Larsen International yet.” Lauren said as she slowly approached the Masked fighter. “You have this Japanese Deathmatch to prepare for, you know? Neither you or Issak are prepared for that type of environment, you’re both technical wrestlers. I’m not really sure what type of training you can do for a Deathmatch, but I’m willing to bet that Miles has something planned for that.”

Miles was always the clever agent, doing his best to prepare ZERO for whatever challenges lay ahead. Perhaps not so clever with the Arianny Blake(DeLise) situation, but that’s a story for another time. Lauren approached ZERO, her eyes locked on him as he sat hunched forward, arms rested on top of his knees which had been brought up close to his chest.

“I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. Miles is directly responsible for you having to jump through hoops in order to secure what you rightfully deserve. But don’t you see that he was trying to help you at the time? He was promised that you would have been taken care of by Arianny had she won the match. Things changed though and the DeLise’s are out to kill Miles it seems. And Shawn’s going to continuously mess everything up until we do something about it. What you do now is up to you…” her voice trailed off, causing ZERO to pick up his eyes to meet hers.

“I don’t need to tell you that this match shouldn’t happen. You and Issak are playing for the same team but here we are. You have to do what you have to do in this situation, ZERO. But I don’t need to remind you why you need this. Bryce de-masked you, humiliated you in front of everyone in the Bay Area. He took that legacy that you brought with you from Mexico and he spat on it. The tradition that goes along with the mask that you wear was disrespected and dishonored.”

“Bryce will be present in the Deathmatch, but you can’t focus on that. I know Miles will tell you and Issak to disregard the matc and  let the chips fall where they may. Both of you should gun for Albright to avenge him. Issak may do just that, but you? You’re smarter than that, ZERO. Why are you here? It’s to re-establish yourself as one of the top wrestling stars in the world - and in order to do that, you need to earn your opportunity. You need to fight for your chance to get revenge on the dishonor that has fallen upon you.”

Lauren paused, but only briefly.

“You and Issak are pretty evenly matched, I’ll admit that. He has strong points over you, but you have some over him. In any other circumstance - this would be a main event quality match, way better than something a fool like Lord Blake could produce. But you have one thing over Issak and it’s obvious. Issak needs Miles Larsen. He needs that safety blanket in order to do anything. You, on the other hand, don’t need Miles this week. Remember that it was Miles who reached out to you and begged you to sign with the L.I.C. Not the other way around. And through his training regimen he's locked away the monster ZERO that terrorized the LLC.”

“You know what you have to do at Vendetta.”